Martin McGuinness: “the past is a very, very dark place for everybody.”
In response to a challenge to appear in front of the Smithwick Tribunal, Sinn Féin’s candidate in the Irish Presidential election, Martin McGuinness, MP, MLA, has said that he has “no problem at all attending the tribunal”. But he added that he has “no direct knowledge of the circumstances surrounding” the murder of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan.
Earlier today, Martin McGuinness said he could not recall the incident Peter Murtagh wrote about in today’s Irish Times, threatened Frank Hegarty’s family with recounting his own version of events, and claimed that “the past is a very, very dark place for everybody”.
Mr McGuinness has repeatedly denied that he lured so-called IRA “informer’’ Frank Hegarty back to Derry to his death in 1986. Asked about an article in today’s Irish Times , in which Foreign Editor Peter Murtagh outlined an encounter with Mr McGuinness in a car outside the Hegarty home in Derry in 1986, Mr McGuinness said he did not recall the incident.
When it was put to Mr McGuinness that he told the Hegarty family it was safe for Mr Hegarty to return home, Mr McGuinness said that was not true.
“That is not true, and the Hegarty family know that. I could articulate in this interview exactly what happened, but if I did that it would be very hurtful and indeed very damaging to the Hegarty family,” he said. He claimed one member of the family knew what had happened, “and I am not going to put that person in a predicament”.
Speaking generally about his past, Mr McGuinness said people in Northern Ireland were not “obsessed by any of this”. He added: “The reality is that the past is a very, very dark place for everybody.”
Not for everybody, Martin…
And then there’s this line.
“What I do find I suppose bemusing [is] that when I come to Dublin you will find a number of people who themselves don’t understand that there is an art to peacemaking and that they too need to have a role in that instead of taking up confrontational positions,” Mr McGuinness said.
[Don't ask 'stupid' questions? - Ed] Indeed.
Except that Martin McGuinness isn’t “peacemaking”, artistically or otherwise.
He’s trying to get elected as the President of Ireland.
Topic: Government, Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Ireland, Northern Ireland, UK
Mick,
Working definition of fascism from wiki:
“Fascism (play /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical far-right authoritarian nationalist political ideology.[1][2] Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood.[3] To achieve this, fascists purge forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration.[4] Fascists believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.[5] It advocates the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy (such as eugenics).[6] A fascist state’s government is led by a supreme leader who exercises a dictatorship over the fascist movement, the government, and other institutions of the state.[7] Discipline and obedience to the leader is demanded by the fascist movement to followers and subjects of a fascist state and is promoted through encouraging comradeship and commitment of followers and subjects.[8] Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the fascist state.[9]
“Fascism promotes violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.[10] It views conflict as a fact of life that is responsible for all human progress.[11] It exalts militarism as providing positive transformation in society, in providing spiritual renovation, education, instilling of a will to dominate in people’s character, and creating national comradeship through military service.[12] Fascists commonly utilize paramilitary organizations for violent attacks on opponents, or to overthrow a political system.[13]”
Obviouslu any similarity….etc etc
Very good, Jimmy. And by that definition both the Tory and New Labour parties qualify as being much closer to Fascism than the IRA has ever done.
An organisation whose very constitution binds it either to the service of the nation it seeks to establish, free of foreign control, or to its own dissolution, as the democratic will of that nation sees fit, does not come within spitting distance.
Further, to attempt to make any links using pejorative terme such as ‘violence’, ‘war’, ‘comradeship’, whatever is facile. May as well attempt to establish unity of purpose between Mussolini and Aung San Suu Kyi on the basis that they both shared a fondness for fresh air, snappy dressing and both preferred rice to pasta.
Here’s a bit more from the Pat Kenny Show yesterday:
Michael McDowell: ” .. They thought that the Army Council of the IRA was the legitimate government of Ireland”
Pat Kenny: “Now how much of all of that has changed in your mind?”
Martin McGuinness: “Well I mean Michael comes at it from a particularly bitter and prejudiced position – totally opposed to Sinn Fein and all that we stand for. But the reality is that there is no IRA, there is no IRA Army Council … I was never on the IRA Army Council, I was never on the IRA Army Council, Michael is totally and absolutely wrong.”
These claims are at odds with Mitchel McLaughlin’s agreement that the PRM AC was indeed viewed as the legitimate government of Ireland and IIRC someone else said that the AC still performed administrative tasks.
It’s worth setting this in context with some words in 2004 spoken by the ‘bitter and prejudiced’ former Minister of Justice: “Let me say clearly that republicanism does not speak in muffled voice through a balaclava; Republicans don’t break drug-addicts’ legs with baseball bats; Republicans do not finance their political campaigns by organising major crimes: Republicans do not shoot car-thieves in their knees and ankles: Republicans could not plant bombs to kill civilians . . . And no true Republican could publicly lie and lie again about his involvement with all of those matters. No true Republican movement in modern Ireland would make common cause with the narco-terrorists of the Communist FARC in Colombia; or with the repressive Castro regime of Cuba; or with the murderous zealots of ETA.”
“I’m struggling to understand what is more repugnant about McGuinness than the nascent 1930s-1970s Fianna Fáil party who were elected, and who slotted civil war era IRA men into civil service jobs throughout the burgeoning Irish state (does that ring any bells?).”
Yes, how did the hypocrisy and self-serving early days of the state work out?
If one were to summarise the history of modern Ireland, it would be an avoidance of the awkward questions. Everything from the army deafness claims to clerical abuse always stems from the same refusal to talk about the things nobody wants to mention.
In a way, electing somebody with a criminal past that he refuses to talk about would be an entirely appropriate symbol of way the state operates.
slappy:
So why would they believe that the PIRA was trying to defend them?
What makes you think they believed this ?
oh, and Stalin, if you’ve made it this far as well
I tried hard.
, in addition to the matter of tolerance, this is the flip side to not joining the war, the failure to inform, and likely owing to the same reason, cowardice/fear
I agree that there is an issue of tolerance, and there’s very much an issue of people who kept quiet about their opposition to the IRA due to threats (which were carried out, most significantly against people like Gerry Fitt and Paddy Devlin). I don’t agree that people who joined the IRA were courageous or that joining was an act of courage. Sinn Féin’s own testimony that the IRA were a consequence of certain British/unionist action implies that revenge was the greater motivator. Add to that the whole issue of how Sinn Féin were always a minority nationalist party until they leveraged John Hume to give them a leg up.
For cruel irony, Kingsmill “the massacre” represents one of the very few times that they rather directly tried to defend to their community. Perhaps you would have liked more Kingmills.
I’m completely lost about how someone could conclude that ordering a bunch of workmen off a minibus and shooting them in cold blood is a defensive action.
The rest of your contribution doesn’t make much sense at all I’m afraid.
McGuinness got it wrong..er..in the number of ‘verys’ he applies to the gradient of darkness referring to the past – too few it seems. However I am amazed at lack of speculation about his current possible affiliations and indeed future implications?
“McGuinness got it wrong..er..in the number of ‘verys’ he applies to the gradient of darkness referring to the past – too few it seems.”
And what does a nice lady from Donegal have to hide in her very, very, very, very dark past?
Let’s not forget that members of murder gangs formed a tiny fraction of NI’s 1.7 million population, so it’s untrue to claim that they comprised all of the population, i.e. everybody.
Piss off Alias. My comment was about the very, very large amount of media attention.
So adding a few more redundant ‘verys’ to “the past is a very, very dark place for everybody” changes the meaning of the sentence from every citizen – rather than just murder gang members – allegedly having a shady past to what you wanted it to mean?
If you say so…
Pedantic wordplay if you will.
I merely observe the lack of scrutiny as to Mc Guinness’ current affiliations which presumably have altered over the past 30yrs. Your view on this?
”Let’s not forget that members of murder gangs formed a tiny fraction of NI’s 1.7 million population, so it’s untrue to claim that they comprised all of the population, i.e. everybody.;;
He does not mean to include NI’s population. He means ‘everybody’ in a position of power surely?
I’d give a view on it if I knew what ‘current affiliations’ you were talking about. His role as an MI6 puppet?
It can safely be assumed that he means what he said: everybody.
“They had the power and the resources to effect political change. They chose not to do so”
Yeah, this is the kind of rewriting of history which is going on.
The British government had a consistent position from the early seventies on that the right solution would be some form of power sharing. The position of SF was that only a united Ireland was acceptable. The position of the DUP was that they wouldn’t share power with Catholics, or that they would but only under impossible conditions.
Somehow, this translates into the Brits deliberately blocking political progress, and SF really wanted all along the things that they consistently and unambiguously said that they bitterly opposed. Right up until the ’90′s, any member of SF or the IRA who had suggested that the current arrangement would be acceptable
Just how the British government were blocking political progress is never quite explained. The fact is that it wasn’t Harold Wilson, for all his cowardice and weakness, who shut down Sunningdale. It was Paisley and Trimble and Adams and McGuinness. The same goes for all the subsequent efforts at progress. When the people of Northern Ireland decided that they could agree what to do, they were able to do it.
On the Late Late TV show, Martin McGuiness said that, if elected President, he “will embarrass those who ruined Irish businesses.”
Does this mean he will embarrass the IRA, who designated all businesses in the North as “legitimate economic targets” for destruction – and then with the help of Gadaffi’s free gift of Semtex, did exactly that?
“the past is a very, very dark place for everybody”
What on earth does this mean? Is it a reference to secrets? Is it a reference to bad things done? Is it a reference to bad things endured? Is he trying to soften his responsibility for the darkness?
We’ve all led very different lives so I tend to get a bit uncomfortable when I see workshops entitled “Same Stories” or phrases like ‘the facts around diversity’.
mobrien:
They had the power and the resources to effect political change. They chose not to do so.
Most of the socal/political change – fair employment, laws against discrimination etc were brought in during the 1970s. The reforms to ensure fairness in things like housing allocation were brought in by the old Stormont government itself, who removed those powers and placed them in the hands of the Housing Executive which is still with us today.
The British prorogued Stormont early in the conflict, in 1972. At the time, ending the Stormont government was the IRA’s stated objective. When that happened, the IRA changed their objective to ending British rule and decided to continue with their campaign.
As westprog points out, the British declared in 1974 that they had no strategic interest in retaining the union and that they would abide by the wishes of the people of NI. They worked consistently to promote power sharing and devolved government – most successfully in 1974 (the talks that led to the institutions in 1974 began immediately after Stormont was prorogued). There were further efforts in the early 1980s; and again in the early 1990s where the Brooke talks would have set up a power sharing government at that time. Both the Prior assembly and the Brooke talks were scuttled by none other than nobel prize winner John Hume who did not want a sensible accomodation with unionists at all – not that the unionists were especially friendly either.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement has very little in it which is new compared with Sunningdale in 1974 or with what was coming to fruition under Brooke. The only difference, the critical difference, is the SF decided to drop their policies over devolution, over 32-county consent, and over British withdrawal. The peace we have today is because the IRA stopped shooting and backed off. Not because it was in any way victorious in accomplishing any objectives at any time after 1972.
They decided in effect to use a segment of their population for target practice. It took over 30 years of and millions of dollars to get an admission of wrongdoing for Bloody Sunday (strange, that with all the thousands of demonstrators the only ones shot were males) — when the truth was immediately self evident.
Sadly, though, scandals like this happen in a lot of places. Kent State springs to mind. There are few governments who are at all enthusiastic about putting their own soldiers on the stand.
This notion that the GFA amounted to a sufficient set of reforms for the IRA to consider ending violence permanently is not merely revisionism, it is a lie. The GFA is effectively a restatement of the British position since the early 1970s, with a few extra baubles. The principle reason why we have peace is because the IRA chose to back down. They chose to back down because they knew they could not win.
These reasons explain at least partially why, for many people, there was no justification for the IRA campaign. For most of the time, the IRA was staffed by people McGuinness now refers to as “conflict junkies”.
I agree that by its violent and intimidating actions the IRA
contributed greatly to conflict,but I also think that the two goverments and top officials did NI a disservice by their neglect ie leaving us to sort it out ourselves.Whatever you could say against Reynolds,Ahern and Blair, I for one will always be grateful that they decided to grasp the nettle. Having the will to do so was key.
While there will always those for whom “there was no justification for the IRA campaign” so there are those for whom there can be no justification for ending it short, that is, of a complete British withdrawal as a presage to Irish unity. Fortunately, for the majority of nationalists, the latter sentiment, insofar as it might be given any consideration whatsoever, is a long game already in progress.
It is however disconcerting to find, among those who hold that there was no justification for the campaign whatsoever, one at least who considers that one of the major atrocities which might be cited as justification is dismissed, along with the Kent State Massacre in the USA in trite terms of, “Sadly, though, scandals like this happen in a lot of places. ”
How is one expected to respond, “So that’s all right then.” ?
Granni Trixie says it well, “Having the will to do so was key.”
Amen to that ! Which is why we ought not forget John Major, the UK Tory Premier, who first grasped the nettle proffered to him by Albert Reynolds and whose courageous willingness to grasp it took much of the sting out of that which was passed on to Blair and Ahern to work on.
It is somewhat disconcerting that those who argue that the Irish Republican murder campaign was somehow justified by events such as ‘Bloody Sunday’ conveniently set aside the murders by Republicans that occurred prior to it. Indeed police officers were murdered in Londonderry itself days before ‘Bloody Sunday’.
Indeed if ‘Bloody Sunday’ ‘justifies’ IRA murders perhaps unionists should lament that, say, Short Strand was not burnt to the ground in 1978 as such action would surely have been ‘justified’ by the La Mon bombing.
“Most of the socal/political change – fair employment, laws against discrimination etc were brought in during the 1970s.”
CS, rights issues were a red herring as the socialist leadership of the IRA in the aftermath of the ’56 – ’62 sought to remove the conservative administrations in both Belfast and Dublin. Sean Garland spelt this out in a Bodenstown address in June 1968. Liam O Comain sheds some light on the influence of Desmond Greaves on both armchair and militant republican thinking and on the lead-up to the formation of NICRA.
The sectarian approach to reform and the confrontational street politics were both not only an impediment to change, they helped set the mobs at each others’ throats. London and Dublin were both keen to ensure that any raging inferno could be confined to Northern Ireland.
On the Late Late TV show, Martin McGuiness said that, if elected President, he “will embarrass those who ruined Irish businesses.”
I don’t think his capacity to cause embarrassment if elected is in doubt.
“we ought not forget John Major, the UK Tory Premier.”
The British Government was always attempting initiatives in NI, despite the fact that this always led to being burned in effigy by the Unionists, and sometimes burned in reality by republicans.
The start of the peace process happened under Margaret Thatcher. First the political uncertainty was ended by the “out out out” speech, which ensured that there would be no blind alleys of joint authority or federalism. The solution would be some form of local government under Britain, until the majority in NI decided differently. Then the Anglo-Irish Agreement was set up. This ensured that there would be some recognition of the Irish connection of many of the people of NI. This was going on while behind the scenes, the IRA were being pushed into politics and away from violence. By the time Major took over, the war of the seventies was already mostly over, and the IRA were engaged in protection rackets, punishment and intermittent spectaculars.
I’ve yet to hear any Irish person acknowledge that the Thatcher government did anything good at all in NI, and she’s chiefly remembered for the hunger strikes.
Good post, Westprog. The conventional narrative has it that the ‘peace process’ was initiated when Hume read Adam’s interview in Hot Press in 1988 stating that no armed solution was possible but Thatcher and the security services were in there much earlier than that pushing them in that direction. Her policy was that NI was an integral part of the UK and that the best way to ensuring that it continued to remain so was to lessen the alienation of the catholic community from the political institutions of the British state. As she put it in her memoirs, “the minority should be led to support or at least acquiesce in the constitutional framework of the state in which they live.” The Anglo Irish Agreement was a key part of that strategy. If there is one person to thank for the peace process then it is Mrs T. Of course, even Thatcher didn’t know how extensively her security services had penetrated PIRA so her policy was an internal settlement that would see them isolated and constitutional nationalists promoted. For example, she never believed that Articles 2 & 3 would be forfeited and dropped the issue whereas the seurity services would have seen their removal as essential to national security and persued it long after she had left the stage.
CS
There is a lot of truth in your post. However, it implies that everything was sorted in the 70s and that there were no reasons for Nationalists to be unhappy – totally incorrect.
I have never supported SF or violence so I’m with you there.
However, there continued to be discrimination against Catholics in the shipyard, Shorts, the civil service, QUB, Belfast City Council etc well past the 70s.
BCC had to pay a fortune (taxpayers money!) in legal costs for their bigotted attempts to keep Catholics from holding any positions of power.
Ditto for QUB – certainly in my time there (mid 80s) they were found guilty of discriminating against Catholics and had to pay out settlements (taxpayers money!).
There are numerous cases of the Fair Employment Agency exposing such discrimination.
The fact is that many Unionists still wanted their pre 1968 Orange State and only altered their behaviour because they had to not because they wanted to.
I have a higher opinion of John Hume than you. I totally oppose violence but Nationalists were quite right to keep the political pressure on and expose Unionism internationally – which they did successfully.
That’s one of the reasons we have such a stalemate now. I can understand Unionists being mistrustful of SF people. However, how do you think Catholics feel about having people like Campbell or McCrae in positions of power?
Unionists and the DUP in particular have shown that they cannot be trusted – I think we’ll be stuck with our current arrangement until the present generation of “politicians” are long gone.
You are quite right that there was no justification for the IRA camapaign (or any other paramiltary organisation).
However, it is not correct to say (or imply) that all the issues that concerned Catholics/Nationalists were sorted out in the 70s. Some laws were repealed and new ones passed which was an improvement. However, a large number of Unionists flouted them with the support of their “leaders”.
MonkDeWallyDeHonk,
I understand what you are saying about the, not so far away past, but where are we today? And who can take the credit. (Not the PIRA, of course, imo).
Joe
Definitely not the IRA.
That’s why I disagree with Comrade Stalin about John Hume. One thing that he did extremely well was to get international coverage of what was happening in the North.
This used to infuriate Unionists (who didn’t want the little Orange state being exposed) and put pressure on the British Govt especially from the USA – even Thatcher’s friend Reagan refused to amend restrictions on gun sales to the RUC.
Frankly, he even educated people in Britain. The average British person is not a bigot and frankly didn’t know anything about the North. They simply didn’t know about Catholics in the North being discriminated against in jobs, housing, votes etc.
Apart from the immorality of the IRA campaign, it was also counter-productive in alienating British people who had (and have) little sympathy for Unionists.
I think that, for a long time, the UK govt only moved on the North when it had to due to international pressure – ditto for Unionism.
IMO a lot of credit for shining that light on the North and what was going on should go to John Hume who cultivated contacts in the US and Europe (where he was and is highly respected).
Nevin,
I am aware that the IRA back then saw NICRA as a tool. But that doesn’t mean that NICRA’s concerns and aims were imaginary or contrived, far from it. There was active and widespread discrimination in the allocation of housing, employment and elected representation. The IRA did not create that situation.
I know that there were still legal cases in the 80s (and even 90s) concerning discrimination. You can’t solve any problem like that overnight. The point is that the legislation was enacted and the legal framework put in place to stop it. There was no proper legal redress for discrimination in the 60s.
Monk,
There was no intention to imply that there were not serious problems with the way the Unionist Party ran the country. I am pointing out that beginning in the early 1970s these problems began to be addressed. This is relevant in this context because we are talking about the IRA’s claims that it used violence because these concerns were not being addressed, when in fact (slowly) they were.
That’s why I disagree with Comrade Stalin about John Hume. One thing that he did extremely well was to get international coverage of what was happening in the North.
When I think of that names such as Fitt, Devlin and Currie spring to mind before Hume.
Unionists and the DUP in particular have shown that they cannot be trusted – I think we’ll be stuck with our current arrangement until the present generation of “politicians” are long gone.
Sadly they are still at it, the unionists systematically excluded Sinn Féin from having any kind of position on Newtownabbey council yet again a few weeks ago. These are the same people who elected a UDA-linked deputy Mayor a year back, so they can’t really say that it’s because of SF’s violent past.
“he even educated people in Britain”
Monk, you seem to be confusing propaganda/partial truth with education. Discrimination was and is being practised by those who were/are in a position to do so – Unionists, Nationalists and Socialists; even the Equality Commission appears to be unable to be an example of good practice.
Were Hume to have been the paragon of virtue you wish to portray perhaps he would have exposed the shenanigans within the organisations he was a member of. The problems within the Catholic Church have been well rehearsed so there’s no need to go there. However when it comes to pontificating about accountability in policing the SDLP made a farce of that by working secretly through the Irish government to have changes made to day-to-day and policy decisions via Irish government officials based in Belfast. Such decisions can’t be examined by the Policing Board as they are classified as intergovernmental exchanges.
T’was but a misunderstood tone in my address of Alias.
McG’s affiliations with British intelligence seem to be a complete non issue with the Irish media or public; the past being the main distraction.
The trick of claiming the ‘dark’ belongs to ‘everyone’ is a standard avoidance of blame propaganda technique, the type of which governments have used for centauries to influence public perceptions. Changing public perception is after all the key exercise of McG. ‘Everyone’ if taken to mean the population serves to objectify a group of people by accrediting them with nonexistent behaviors, but cleverly can also be construed (the ‘dark’ being abstract) as an empathetic sharing of bad times.
I tend to think he means ‘everyone’ as in the other power players – a piece of political whataboutery & reminder that they too have bad stuff to hide.
In any case the exercise is to transform in image from Ruthless to Refined.
wee buns
“McG’s affiliations with British intelligence seem to be a complete non issue with the Irish media or public”. Much like it will continue to be for them and for the rest of us until some persuasive evidence that there IS or WAS any such affiliation is produced.
Wee Buns, the context of the statement was the media focus on his central role in the murder of Frank Hegarty. Depending on your slant, he either threatened the Hegarty family with “very hurtful and indeed very damaging” lies if they spoke to the media or blackmailed them with the truth. That is damage limitation – more of the type he practiced when asked in the interview about sending his thugs to enter the home of Frank’s mother to terminate an interview with the Irish Times journalist Peter Murtagh.
Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t recall that incident but claimed that he could recall all other details that would support his version of what had allegedly happened. How he knew these details, if not a member of PIRA and not involved in Frank Hegarty’s murder is not explained but presumably Scappaticci – who detested McGuinness – filled him in on the details over a pint of shandy as a friendly gesture.
When it was put to Mr McGuinness that he told the Hegarty family it was safe for Mr Hegarty to return home, Mr McGuinness said that was not true.
“That is not true, and the Hegarty family know that. I could articulate in this interview exactly what happened, but if I did that it would be very hurtful and indeed very damaging to the Hegarty family,” he said. He claimed one member of the family knew what had happened, “and I am not going to put that person in a predicament”.
Speaking generally about his past, Mr McGuinness said people in Northern Ireland were not “obsessed by any of this”. He added: “The reality is that the past is a very, very dark place for everybody.”
The past is a very dark place for those like McGuinness who seek to hide their involvement in murder but I doubt it is all that dark for the Hegarty family since they seemed rather keen to invite journalists to explore in contradiction of McGuinness’s desire not to go there.
A Sunday Independent (Oct 2 – page 2) says of Martin McGuinness. He is “a remarkably able and astute person, but that did not make him a person one should trust. Hume was prepared to trust Adams. He knew McGuinness, but did not trust him; indeed he feared him. We who do not know him would be foolish not to do otherwise.”
john brennan,
Hume trusted Adams with what, exactly ? And given what we now know about Adams’ brother and the alleged efforts by Adams to cover for him, doesn’t that suggest that Hume is gifted with spectacularly bad judgement ?
Adams and McGuinness were and are a double act. You wouldn’t have one without the other, and Sinn Féin together with its contribution to things would not be the same without either of them.
Nun
Speculation is the job of the meeja at least insofar as asking incisive questions is concerned, and my small point is that what remains largely unasked is why Hegarty, a known informer, was allowed to return to a key position within the IRA when McG was in control. That surely is the ‘dark place for everybody’ that made McG risk loads to get Hegarty back to Derry. I am not suggesting that a straight answer may be forthcoming, but to ask the question raises public awareness.
I hate to butt in now that I’m sidelined and a good question asked to another poster…
Ed Moloney’s view on that is interesting but doesn’t really make any sense under closer scrutiny.
Moloney says that the FRU planned to place Hegarty into the position of QMG – an upgrade from his previous position QM for the NC. As it happens, he got as far as QM for PIRA in Derry – a role that McGuinness appointed him to.
What is odd about Moloney’s version is that Hegarty was taken out of NI by the FRU as soon as the Gardai raided some arms dumps under his control. How then did they expect to promote him all the way up to QMG if they planned to remove him at the first sign of trouble? Bit of a giveaway…
But odder still is why the FRU would have thought they could get him past folks on PIRA who weren’t, shall we say, particularly sympathetic to their infiltration agenda.
It is more likely that Hegarty was not placed back into PIRA for the purpose that Moloney claims but placed back into it for the purpose for which he was actually used – as the fall-guy for the betrayal of the imported Libyian arms.
In other words, the person who appointed a longstanding informer (as confirmed by his handler) to the position of QM for PIRA in Derry did so to take the rap for his own betrayal of the arms. That person would have been understandably anxious that Hegarty be disposed of before he figured out that his return and rise back to the top wasn’t due to his own brilliance…
“Hume was prepared to trust Adams.” screams the Sunday Independent, a statement from which source would, in normal circumstances, leave a perplexed reader scratching his head in puzzlement.
But these are not normal times, dear reader. These are times of great peril indeed. A shinner is on the rampage and must be stopped by any means fair or foul.
“But how does it help to big up the top shinner then ?” I hear you ask.
” The thing of it is, you see, that this particular shinner is not Adams, he’s the other fella. If Adams was running we would be claiming that Mother Teresa or Sting or somebody like that, trusted McGuinness, d’ye see?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Know what?”
“About McGuinness and Mother Teresa.”
“Jayz, will ye forget about Mother Teresa, it’s Adams we’re talking about.”
“What, did she trust him too?”
“Trust who?”
“Adams.”
“Fer feck’s sake! Who is it you’re voting for anyway?”
“Well, I was going to vote for Dana but if Mother Teresa says McGuinness is to be trusted then..”
Alias
I have nothing to add.
McG has a perfect role model in Bliar – if evidence ever surfaces – he can say he believed it was right, at the time.